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Friday, June 24, 2011

Click here and hit the magnify button when you get there to enlarge map.Or click on the map and enlarge...Enjoy!

Note to American sommeliers studying to pass various levels in the Guild of Sommeliers:
I gather if you all are looking for a list that Guild of Sommelier governing board deems to be the official one for their purposesin order to set a standard for their testing, then by all means stay at 59 (and counting). However in the Italian wine (and sommelier) community, most of us know the Italian government is painfully slow in publishing the new DOCGs, rendering them "official". In those circles, the number is now 71, whether the “official” paperwork has been filed or not. And with a summer vacation upon them, those of you studying for your MS, etc in late July in Vegas will be even more stressed to differentiate between the Guild of Sommeliers official number and what we know in the Italian wine community to be the current ( and climbing) number of DOCG’s. Sorry for the confusion. I didn’t set it up, just reporting it.

All pretty silly when one takes into consideration this whole Italian appellation system will cease to be relevant about the time the Mayan calendar ends, in late 2012.

I am traveling for my first trip to Italy, finally. I will be in Tuscany for a day, and would love some advice on 6-8 wineries you would suggest visiting. Our ship docks in Livorno, and we will be renting a car while there, so we can maximize our "vino" time!

Another detail need to be fixed: in the Marche region, only “Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Riserva” and “Verdicchio di Matelica Riserva” are Docg, while “Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio” and “Verdicchio di Matelica” are Doc.

Thanks gp-noted, though very odd that they have a separate DOC for non riserva and DOCG for riserva while the Chianti shares he DOCG for the regular and the riserva. Well, we all know what a mess it is.

It is a matter of choice by the producers if they choose to apply in order to upgrade their Doc to Docg just for some of the typologies or for all of them. In the same region, for instance, the choice to upgrade only Rosso Conero Riserva, and not also plain Rosso Conero, to Docg Conero has been made some years ago. Recently, some new Docg have been dedicated only to the typology “superiore” of a previous Doc, as in Frascati Superiore and Aglianico del Vulture Superiore, while Frascati and Aglianico del Vulture continue to exist as Doc (by the way, one of the two should be fixed on the map!).

As regards the Docg Chianti, many would not look at it as a positive example, for many reasons (the confusionary coexistence of two Docg with similar names – “Chianti” and “Chianti Classico” – and the arbitrary reference of the first of these to the name of an area that pertains only to the second). In particular, «Chianti Colli Aretini», «Chianti Colline Pisane» e «Chianti Montalbano», which are not even near the Chianti area, would be perfect as Doc «Colli Aretini Rosso» and so on.

About Me

Writing about Italian wine and culture. Moving between Italy and America. Passionate about both of my countries. Fed by the energy of Italy, California and Texas. Drawn to the open spaces of America and the small vineyards of Italy.
@italianwineguy
ItalianWineTrail@yahoo[dot]com